We support the College of Engineering for two reasons. The first is philanthropic leverage. Unlike donating to a particular cause to solve a specific problem, donations to the college’s innovative faculty and clever students have the potential to positively impact a variety of problems, many of which we are not even aware of.

In order for great ideas and technologies to positively affect lives, they have to be commercially developed and distributed. For this reason, we also support the UW School of Business.

The second reason is personal indebtedness. The Wisconsin taxpayer, through the College of Engineering, provided me an education that served as a strong foundation from which to build a career. The engineering curriculum teaches logic and creative problem-solving skills, and we want to do our part to make sure that future generations receive the same benefits.

We support the Engineering Fund for Excellence and the Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Building Fund because the college identified student access and facilities as areas in particular need of funding. Our view is that the college and the UW are managed by highly competent and committed professionals. They know (much better than we know) where resources are needed. When the college embarks on a specific fund-raising effort, we assume it is because there is a high-priority need that requires funding. While we enjoy reading about new facilities, interesting students, and all the innovations they foster, we believe the decision to allocate scarce resources is best made by the university’s administrators.

Our universities are one of our country’s most valuable assets, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison is one of our country’s premier universities. The social and economic benefits that it provides are immense. In order to provide these benefits, the university needs funding to attract and retain top faculty, to attract motivated students, and to have state-of-the-art facilities both for research and teaching. Especially today, when traditional revenue sources are contracting, it is important that alumni across the university make an effort to ensure that the university remains a worldclass academic institution.

Gifts to the UW Foundation may be in the form of cash, appreciated securities, personal or real property. Pledges may be made over a period of years. Gifts to the UW Foundation are fully tax deductible.